Wednesday, 23 May 2007

Australia's Biggest Morning Tea - Charity Cake Competition (Part I)

Tomorrow is the official day for Australia's Biggest Morning Tea , one of the Cancer Council Australia’s most popular and largest fundraising events. Every year, one of the departments at work organises a Charity Cake Competition where home baked cakes are judged according to various categories and then auctioned off. All the proceeds go to the Cancer Council.

... As if I needed an excuse to bake ...

I enjoy baking for charity. My first charity bake was when I was 14 years old and I baked 37 heart-shaped chocolate mud cakes in three straight days. I was chocolate phobic for almost a week after that. There is such a thing as too much chocolate, I discovered.

I have been thinking for a week about what I should bake. I had to take into account my lack of time this week, so the cake cannot be too time consuming or complicated. And it had to be unique. So, I decided to make a German cake from the Alsace region - Rotweinkuchen (Red Wine Cake) I got the recipe from my German friend, Eva of Sweet sins. She has many great recipes.

This was also an opportunity to show off my new toy – a cast aluminum traditional cake mould, one of the cool gadgets that Em gave me for my birthday two weeks ago. Wouldn't you agree that this mould is destined for great cakes? When I first laid my eyes on it, my mind started to go wild thinking of all the beautiful cakes I could make.

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However, I have to say that I am a little disappointed with the final product ….

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You know how sometimes you have a certain vision or fantasy of how your cake will turn out but in the end, the reality didn’t quite match up? Well, this is one such instance. It was not the mould’s fault though. It was the glaze’s fault…. and the baker. Oh well, at least this will be for a good cause. And I know that it will taste good because I've had rave reviews the last time I made it. Photos of the cake competition that was held today, the results and the cake auction will be in my next post, so stay tuned!

Em & janet, thanks for the kinds words. Yes, it does resemble the Opera House. I had trouble glazing the cake because I have never tried to glaze a moulded cake before. Unfortunately, the glaze did not remain shiny. You'll see it in the next post.

Patricia - Thanks, yes the shape is beautiful. If you like red wine, you should give this a go!

Well,I definitely have to go along with all the other comments - to me, this cake looks just perfect! As for the glaze, I had very good results using the chocolate glaze Molly of Orangette uses for her coconut macaroons!

I think that the cake looks stunning, and em is right, it looks like the Sydney Opera House!A book you might like that has some great recipes for this shape tin, is The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather. Great bundt tin recipes!

About Me

For the love of food

... looking, thinking, reading, researching, smelling, creating, discussing, tasting, sharing & dreaming about food.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~Many years ago, I moved to Sydney from a tiny island near the equator. It is no secret that I am obsessed about food. My Aussie husband ("Quikong") claims that he doesn't really care about food. In reality, he is actually a gourmand-in-denial & my harshest critic. Therefore, I've made him the official taster of the recipes I will post.